Jason Walls wraps the political week

Political Editor Jason Walls talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the week that was.

This week an internal police memo was leaked, which explained their plan to cease investigations on shoplifting allegations below $500. 

Have we got to the bottom of it? 

Winston Peters "permanently" ruled out working with Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Jason Walls explains how Peters left himself some "wiggle room" in doing so. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jason Wall's Newstalks it be political Leader to raps the
political week that was welcome back, Jason.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Oh, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Now, okay, have we got to the bottom of what
actually happened with that police memo? Was it that the
memo was wrong or was it simply that once it
became apparent two ministers and the top brass what the
memo said, they reversed it.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Listen, I think it might be a mix of the two.
I mean listening to the various people that have talked
about this, I mean Mark the Prime Minister essentially saying,
you know, it could have been clearer, and then we
had Mark Mitchell saying something as well. In terms of
what actually it was, it's a bit of a mystery
at this stage, but you can tell that, you know,
the pr response went into a bit of overdrive on
this one, because obviously Mark Mitchell must have seen the

(00:41):
story and same with the Prime Minister and thought, this
is not the message that we as a national government
want to be sending on law and order, and so,
I mean it just kind of shows sometimes the power
of government, how quickly can things can turn around. So
the next time someone tells you, oh, it's going to
take a couple of weeks to do this because the
machinery of government turns slowly to this, Heather and say,

(01:01):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Okay, I find this See I just am not at
all convinced that I just don't know what to think
about this, Jason, because it was on the Monday they
had a superintendent on the show with us, and that's
a very senior position, and this person had been given
to us by the police media team to basically explain
that the memo was right. And then the next day

(01:24):
we're being told by people higher up that the memo
was wrong. And so I just I feel like the
wall is being pulled, don't you think?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, yeah, I mean the whole time it was confusing here,
and I think anybody that was listening has the right
to be a little bit confused as to where this
kind of ended up.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
So where I end up on this is in fact
that that memo was correct and that this is what
they are doing. But if they have the free like
if all the cops if you call in your theft
and it's two hundred and fifty dollars and all the
cops in Auckland are sitting around twddling their thumbs. Somebody
will come out, but the rest of the time, this
is actually what it's like.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, and I mean I'm assuming this has been an
unwritten rule for some time. It's just somebody actually wrote
it down and somebody You've tracked this down via an
official information at request, and then all hell broke loose.
So I think that it's sort of just it came
to maybe and again we have to read between the
lines here because it's been so wishy washy here. It
was written down, and they said, that's not what we
actually do. It was written down, but that's not our

(02:22):
practice or something around the sort of idea.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Now, I think that Winston Peter's ruling out Chippy is
more significant than people realize.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
What do you think, well, I mean there is now
Winston words matter. Peter's kind of left himself some wiggle
room here, of course, because he can still go into
a coalition or any sort of post government agreement with
Labor as long as Chippy is or Chris Hipkins rather
is not in charge at the time, and it was

(02:50):
you know, and it's always Winston. He just leaves himself.
I mean, he's a lawyer. By practice, he leaves himself
this little bit of wiggle room, and it's you know,
he's kind of almost forcing a difficult conversation for Labor
Party MPs when they get closer to that election date
if they get to a point where they can win power,
but only if they side with New Zealand first and
decide to kick the likes of Tipati Marti to the

(03:11):
curb and say we're not actually going to work with you.
The MPs will be scratching their heads and saying, we'll
hang on a second. You know, we've got we could
get the knives out and be ministers soon. So it's
tactical by Winston, I think.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I think so. I think it puts a target on
Chippy's back. But in order for that, in order for
these guys to actually roll Chippy, I think they have
to understand that how much they need New Zealand first time.
I'm not sure that they realize that yet, do they.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
It's well, they don't talk like that. I mean, it's
very much sounds like and you know, when Winston was
in government and national with the opposition, there were some
among us that were saying they'll never work together. Look
at the way that they talk to each other. So
Winston can bury the hatchet, and I think that an
opposition MP wanting to be a minister will move heaven
and earth to bury a hatchet as well. So yeah,

(04:01):
let's have this conversation again in about a year's time
and see where we're sitting.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Eh, Yeah, fair enough, Hey, Jason, thank you has always
appreciated Jason Wall's political leader to report. For more from
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